Day 6 RPI Vocabulary

To reach the goal of 20,000 word vocabulary of a literate person, we need to acquire 700 words a year ! So… I need to focus even more strongly on vocab teaching. It is also the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. 

We went through lots of ways to explicitly teach vocab. I need to choose more tier two words per text than I normally do - 5-8 per text. I also want to do more empowering of students to make and design their own but remembering that although apps can support word exposure they do not substitute for rich text encounters. Text in the centre always.

I am already working hard to build a love of words, to increase word consciousness and word knowledge over the last month or so in my class, and will continue this. I have been surprised at how much the learners enjoy picking apart words during spelling time.

There have been lots of great examples of how to bring in multiple exposures with interactive puzzles and wordplay like morpheme matrices, which I will incorporate. Perhaps having a rebus on screen for when learners are settling in their seats. I love the idea of inventing fake words to crack  using morphology in some fun multimodal activities. I currently have a word wall and a sentence structure wall, which learners love, but could also have a morphology wall they can manipulate.

I also like the spotlight on words for before and after reading, to focus their attention on important tier two words when reading then getting a sense of success when they know it at the end.

I am going to have a look at lots of the provided links and resources in the holidays eg the morphology project. We currently have a morphology scope and sequence but it doesn't seem very good.

I also want to try reciprocal reading so will read up on the efficacy of that too.

Links and actions 

1. toolkit.manaikalani.org  / ask a facilitator to help with tools? Secure gemini as only a learning tool?

2. Choose 5-8  tier two words from each text

3. Morphology wall to manipulate like our sentence structure one

4. RPI spotlight on words - before and after reading

5. NS Copy of Base Words Plus Suffix

6. Session 7: Morphology (Chapter 12) Orton Gillingham Teachers Manual 2019 

7. Session 7: The Morphology Project

8. Session 7: Spelling Progressions (United Kingdom)

9. Session 7: Matrix Maker (prefix, root/base, suffix

Improvement Mahi presentation to staff Term 2 Week 7

 

 RPI. Post Day 5 : Planning a reading program

There are a lot of factors to consider about timetabling and fitting everything in. Today was certainly aspirational and an opportunity to see what others ideas are and what could be possible. 

I would like to think more deeply about using an overall curriculum tracker like the example here as it is potentially simpler and more effective than what we do. 

We are doing well with our learner tracking doc. However,  the work done in books may not be well reflected in the tracking doc, which means things in two different places.

 I still think our visibility to learners and parents could be better (incl rewindability) through schooltalk so will revisit how I link my digital slides into schooltalk so they can more easily see across a week. 

I also want to have something that makes it clearer to learners what they need to have completed by the end of each week. I do what the expectations are by the end of each day well, but could be clearer about the bigger picture, especially for learners looking at their work with parents at home, which more of our parents want.

I need to work out how to better spend more explicit time with my target learners (they are mostly on the same table). At the moment, I spend time with them while others are doing the same task independently. (This is what we were encouraged to do on the SL PLD. Have target and extn learners close by to scaffold and extend in the moment.). Sometimes this is not enough time though, or too disjointed.

Definitely will utilise the Epic and Readworks better, for text searching and questions. Need to work out how to track completion of these activities though.

We work the idea of reading like writers and writing like readers , and integration, into our lessons very well.

We use SL in our spelling (Code) and targets have an intervention group for 20 mins per 4 days, but I need to increase morphology and etymology into spelling and vocab building better.

 BLOG Day 4

Today was useful as it helped consolidate many activities I already do, plus added a few more. I want to ensure I am doing all of the following in a wider reading programme:

Reading aloud to learners (eg feed and read or modelling), shared reading (maybe before deconstructing texts together), small group instruction, paired reading (usually whole class), independent reading (independent activities)  and recreational reading (in the Library, sometimes SSR).

For every text:

• Text purpose/ Introduce text

• Observe learners reading

• Brief Discussion

• Precise teaching points

• Independent followup to consolidate learning

• focused word work

• Reflection time

The concept of rewindable learning was good. We have shared slides which are all accessible through Schooltalk for learners and whanau and teachers to revisit, but I am wondering if it is user friendly enough for learners and whanau if the week has gone by and they want to find it again. 

Building knowledge together - purposefully and equitably. Front load vocabulary. Keep the focus on the LI when reading a text - keep coming back to the purpose and using specific evidence from the text.

Listening to reading - ensuring I hear everyone read - using digital if needed - every 2 weeks ish. I liked the fluency rubric. I need to break this down and model for learners rather than doing everything at once. I also need to have a specific teaching point when doing fluency reading practice eg intonation. Pace should come in last.

I need to reflect with the team on if just a simple recording is better than Snorkl where the feedback is from AI. In other words, I think the feedback and evaluation would be better coming from themselves or another learner against a rubric.

For discussions. I need to ensure I always review and embed ground rules and ensure they know it is a learning discussion not a test  for example say: “OK we are having a learning conversation now”

Questioning

Ensure I am using all types of questions in my followups and discussions, and that it is learner led, provoking questions that will build conversation, not just elicit a single answer that nobody builds on. Try this with a smaller group.

This Fountas and Pinnell cycle for small group text work is useful. The LI can be brought in during explicit work (teaching points)

 19.4.26 Text selection 

It was interesting to think about text selection in a heavily shared planning environment. We have our overall themes for the term which are broken down into weeks and aligned with the literacy and, for this term, the social sciences curriculum. Teachers then plan all literacy and concept for their given week.

So far in week 1 - Population changes

Texts include a range of visuals and graphics, two videos (the consequences of an ageing population and push and pull factors), two AI generated population demographic readings (differentiated) , and two journals- Level 2, Namesake and Level 3, Home. Our feed & read read-alouds will be from our national library stash which hasn't arrived yet but will be linked to these concepts.

This is a screenshot from part of my teacher workbook text tracker.

I will use the “What is an ageing population?” text as a summariser text using the Shanahan strikethrough method.

 Day 3 RPI reflection 

Text selection is something I think I can improve. As a year 5-6 team, we link our reading, writing and termly concept themes very well. We us a variety of text types, including video. In recent years, AI has been used more to create the exact texts we need, both content, style, and incorporating interests were possible.  This has meant we can create different genres easily, differentiate if needed (same content diff level), use learned vocab in texts, pull out tier 2 and 3 vocab for practising, but where we need to be careful is the ‘feel’ and variety in AI created texts is not ideal.

I will ensure I am applying important tweaks to my programme so it is sustainable.

My actions will include

-Keep building a community of readers in conjunction with Esther in the library. Choosing, recording, sharing what have read

-use the RPI workbook to track text genre and content coverage and build text sets around a theme to plan ahead better. Use journal surf and the other links provided. This tracking will be very useful in a shared environment, especially if some teachers add things after initial planning has been shared.

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-Selecting an anchor text then building around the theme and the LIs.

- The skill builder was great. I will be trying this summarising session. The Shanahan idea of striking out unnecessary info then seeing what is left,  rather than highlighting key points, is cool.

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-Doing a stocktake of my reading program was useful. Here are my thoughts.

Today had lots of great thinking. I have strong tier one class teaching at the moment with good targeted interventions. However, there is a gap where I think flexible small group work would be beneficial. At the moment I just keep these learners close by and scaffold them with the same work as the rest. How can I timetable something? ( I have a lot of boys, minimising chromebook use, a lot of behaviour and a lot of special needs, and in an MLE. )

RPI Post Day 2

RPI post day 2

I am learning a lot just by listening to the team and other teacher about what actually happens in other classrooms. So valuable. 

More specifically, digging into the PAT data was helpful eg the lower percentage correct’ question types , setting up our own learner workbook to keep track of learning - with its clear links summarising from learners and their preferences, to deciding next steps from PAT data and linking this to LIs from the curriculum. I also love the next step link to ARB resources.

It was good to get a reminder about the usefulness of clear LIs and SCs - informed by curriculum but chunking them for learners

I totally agree with the team reiterating that what we learn must be implemented and sustained. So much PLD goes to waste in this way.  I will implement and embed for good what is working as well as transfer to my team as much as possible. So far, I have implemented ground rules for extended discussion and will continue this, as well as ensuring I continue to use the information from the reader survey.

Over the next three weeks, I will trial 

• Further populate my teacher workbook and discuss what the achievement data is telling me for next steps

• Develop my taskboard 

• Embed the routine of vocab task, read text, multichoice question practice, an LI task eg inference practice, create/share task eg a fluency recording

• Implement clearer WALTs and SCs for reading. They always look the same and in the same place so learners are familiar with the routine and feel “we are in this together”

• Start the bookchain 

• Getting kids up and running on Epic but using limits eg keywords